A Demigod's Life
by shiiki
Summary: [SPOILERS FOR TBM] Annabeth and Percy cope the way they always do—together.


**A/N** : MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BURNING MAZE.

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 **A Demigod's Life**

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Annabeth's hands shook as she hung up the phone. The cheer she'd tried to inject for her cousin's sake slid away like oil on water. As soon as she looked back at Percy's red-rimmed eyes and scrunched up face, she lost even the faint flicker of optimism Magnus's good news had brought. It was great that the world wasn't going to go up in Norse flames, but …

Maybe Magnus had saved the world, but it still felt like theirs had come grinding to a halt.

She went to Percy and put her head against his shoulder. His arms came around her automatically.

'He says your advice helped. He said to tell you he kept his …' Her voice died on the words _butt clenched all the way._ The joke fell flat as the memory of their first flight to New Rome on the Argo II crept up on her. Jason had been trying to explain legion formations to them, and Leo, ever the joker, had asked if they all had to walk like they had sticks up their butts, too.

' _I do_ not _walk like I have a stick up my butt,_ ' Jason had protested.

Piper had laughed and kissed his cheek. ' _Well, you do sort of_ clench _when you're being all proper and stuff …_ '

Annabeth choked down a sob. Percy pulled her closer and buried his face in her hair. He might have been trying to comfort her, but from the way his arms trembled, she knew she was as much his lifeline as he was hers. When something like this happened, when the grief and guilt threatened to swallow you whole …

'It's my fault.' Percy's voice cracked on the last word.

'No,' she whispered. 'You know it isn't.'

'I—' He gave a harsh, humourless laugh. 'I'm supposed to be the one whose fatal flaw is loyalty. And I wasn't there. I didn't go.'

It wasn't so much loyalty, she thought, as it was his need to save everyone. His inability to step away had always been a struggle for him. And now that he'd finally started to conquer it, Jason had made the ultimate sacrifice … and Percy couldn't forgive himself for falling short.

'You can't always be the hero, Percy.'

'Too many times,' he said in a ragged voice. 'Too many times, someone else's taken the fall. First there was Bob and Damasen … and then we let Leo … and now …' He took a deep breath. 'Apollo came to me, Annabeth. He asked for _my_ help. And I told him no quests. No saving the world.'

'You took him to camp. You did what you could.'

'I said _no._ But Jason didn't. And now he's …' He closed his eyes. 'I should have gone. I should have been the one to—if anyone had to die …'

'Don't say that!' Shards of ice pierced her skin, spilling cold fear into her veins. 'Don't ever say that.'

It was a fear that had always lain dormant in her mind. That this would be exactly how she would lose Percy one day—one heroic sacrifice. After all, he'd come so close so many times. In the Labyrinth. In Tartarus.

Annabeth had wanted so badly to move past that fear. In her hubris, she'd believed they'd done their part. They could go off to college in New Rome and be safe, normal. How could she have forgotten, even for a second, that a demigod's life was cursed a thousand times over by the Fates?

'Maybe if I'd been there …'

She cupped his face. 'I know you, Percy. If you had been there, it wouldn't be Jason in that coffin. It'd be you, and I couldn't … I can't even …' Her voice cracked. 'Maybe I'm selfish, and awful, because I can't help being so damn grateful that _it wasn't you._ '

She was shaking uncontrollably now, a tsunami of guilt and terror threatening to sweep her away. She couldn't deny that as devastating as it had been when Apollo had told them the story, a small part of her had thanked every god in the pantheon that of all the tragedies that could have happened … it wasn't Grover. It wasn't Piper.

It wasn't Percy.

What sort of person did that make her?

'You're not awful.' Percy pressed his nose to hers. His tears were falling fast again, mingling with hers on their cheeks. 'I couldn't lose you either.'

She wasn't sure if his mouth found hers, or if it was the other way round. Whichever it was, she breathed him in hungrily, needing absolution, needing succour, needing _him._ Their kiss was rough and desperate, almost violent as they searched for relief—a relief that wouldn't come, but they would try and extort from each other anyway. It was a shared outpouring of guilt and fear and grief, a maelstrom of emotions that would have eaten her alive if she tried to endure them alone.

Being with Percy was a single stitch holding together the ragged fabric of her heart.

And she could not forget that but for a twist of Fates' needles, she could be in Piper's position: broken and alone, holding the pieces of a shattered heart that would never fit back together.

They were demigods, after all. Life was fragile and temporary and you could not plan for it. You could not plan for loss. You could not plan for heartbreak.

 _You can't control every contingency,_ Piper had once told her. _You have to accept that. Let it scare you. Trust that it'll be okay anyway._

Annabeth wondered if Piper still believed that after _this._

Afterwards, as they held each other close, Percy traced a series of tally marks across her shoulder blades. She knew without asking that they were a running count of the friends they had lost over the years. Deaths they had moved on from, but which came back to haunt her now that another friend had joined the list, as if to remind her that there was no statue of limitations on grief.

'He saved my life, you know,' Percy said softly. 'At the bottom of the ocean, no less.'

'The thing with Kymopoleia?'

Percy's laugh was brittle, but less broken now. 'And I told him to keep the details to himself. Wish I'd let him make as much fun of me as he wanted.'

'He wouldn't have.' She sniffled. 'He was always so honourable.'

'So serious,' Percy agreed.

Her mind gave a crystal clear image of Jason with his glasses on, earnestly trying to explain Roman history to the Argo crew. He taught so much better than she did, with infinite patience and none of her exasperation.

'Professor Grace.' Her lips formed a trembling smile.

'The blond Superman.'

'Pontifex Maximus.' She thought of the rough sketches Meg McCaffrey had pressed into her hands. Jason's final legacy, entrusted to _her._

Her eyes met Percy's and a terrifying but inescapable truth passed between them. 'We have to finish it. Everything he—everything he died for.'

Percy's jaw clenched. 'The emperors.'

It was time they joined the fight.

They weren't done saving the world. Maybe they never would be. But that was what being a demigod meant. Monsters—human or otherwise—never went away. All they could do was keep the evil at bay, the way Jason had, and Bob and Damasen, and Luke, and Beckendorf, and Silena, and so many others who had gone before them. Until their time was up, and they had no choice but to hand the sword over to someone else to carry on the fight.

All _she_ could do was live with the fear and the pain and the heartbreak, and keep fighting anyway. _Trust that it'll be okay._

And if it wasn't …

Then Annabeth just prayed to every god there was out there—Greek, Norse, Egyptian, she didn't care which—that if the time ever came for Percy to be the hero, she would fall with him.

As long as they were together.

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 **A/N** : Yeah, clearly I am not done with the angst, oh boy. I think the fact that it's 5am and I'm posting fic says something. O_o

Jason's death in The Burning Maze raised quite a bit of guilt in that I actually felt relief about it before sadness that we'd lost this good, heroic character. I needed to express this somehow, and I guess my girl Annabeth gets to be the one helping me give voice to those feelings. And it ended up being this fic. So that being what it is, I don't know if this is all that great a piece of writing. But perhaps some of you can relate.

(Side note, this is actually a toned down version of what _first_ came out. Not sure exactly why that first pass wound up in mature content category, but I as I will not post explicit adult content on a site without screens for underage readers, the version here is more suitable for a general audience. If you want the adult stuff, you'll have to pass Ao3's restrictions.)


End file.
